Angel Cockerham
ENGL 150
Mama Day as Shakespeare Revisited
Throughout the mystical novel, Mama Day by Gloria Naylor, allusions to many of
William Shakespeare’s plays make an appearance. Though many are noted, Romeo and Juliet
and The Tempest by William Shakespeare are the most notably apparent plays that contribute to
the overall story of this novel. From the names of characters to most aspects of the plot, Gloria
Naylor re-imagines many of Shakespeare’s most popular works, and places them in a more
modern day setting. The story of Mama Day, Cocoa or Ophelia, and George in the novel, Mama
Day, is William Shakespeare revisited.
In many of Shakespeare’s plays, he starts with some type of chorus that speaks directly to
the audience. This chorus lets the audience know what is either going on at this particular
moment in the world of the play, or the chorus lets the audience know what has happened in the
past to get the characters of the play to this certain point in time. This type of introduction is
what Shakespeare used in one of his more famous plays, Romeo and Juliet. In Romeo and Juliet,
the chorus lets the audience know that the following story will be about “A pair of star-crossed
lovers” (Prologue, 6) who met an untimely, but self-inflicted, end to their young lives based on
the love that they had for one another.
The novel Mama Day utilizes this type of choral introduction. The first pages of the
novel were not part of the actual first chapter thus, it is the prologue, or chorus, letting the
audience roughly know what has happened in the past of Willow Springs. The chorus ends with
what is currently happening on that isolated island. The chorus informs the audience as to how
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the people of Willow Springs acquired their land, how they have kept their land from
unnecessary development, how they have special ways of referring to certain things, where the
island of Willow Springs is actually located, and how the outsiders do not truly understand their
way of life. The introduction also introduces the audience to Mama Day, and lets the audience
know that Cocoa still visits her first husband who has stayed on the island when he came for his
first visit. This introduction gets the audience ready for a story that may be hard to believe to
those who are not natives to Willow Springs. This preparation is the same for Romeo and Juliet;
the chorus is priming the audience for a story of tragedy that is unknown to those who are not
natives of the city of Verona.
The use of a chorus to give the background to the piece is not the only comparison to the
play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. The aspect of forbidden, but predestined, love
is woven throughout the novel, Mama Day. The idea of the “star-crossed lovers” repeats on page
129 by George in reference to his relationship with Cocoa. The concept of being star-crossed
continues throughout the novel. The history of the women in Cocoa’s family reveals that Mama
Day expects this type of relationship between Cocoa and George. It is in the stars for Cocoa and
George to be together.
The comparison between the two works does not stop at the reference to “star-crossed
lovers.” From the beginning of both love stories, there is a sort of mirroring of the other. In
Romeo and Juliet, Romeo starts off his love life by being in love with a character named
Rosaline, who does not return the affection. Once Romeo sees Juliet at a party, he falls for her
instead. This part of the story is very similar to the rocky relationship George has originally with
Shawn. Later, when George spots Cocoa at the diner and later at the job interview, his love life
changes. It seems as though the stars determine both encounters between Romeo and Juliet,
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George and Cocoa. Both men, George and Romeo, had failing love lives until other women,
Cocoa and Juliet came along.
In Romeo and Juliet, the young couple could not be a part of each other’s lives because of
their dueling families. In Mama Day, the island of Manhattan and the island of Willow Springs
takes the place of these dueling families. All through the telling of the story, the emphasis
placed on the fact that George is a city boy while Cocoa is a country girl, shows how opposite
they are of each other. Because George is from the city, he is portrayed as an “in the now” type
of person who is too intelligent to accept mysticism as an option, while Cocoa’s country
upbringing does not allow her to open her mind to people who are different from herself.
Coming from different cities shows that they are coming from the different backgrounds that
both couples portray. Manhattan is a well-known powerful place while Willow Springs is
powerful in its own right. This juxtaposition of the powerful cities with the powerful Montague
and Capulet families comes together at the end.
When it comes to the endings of both pieces is where some of the similarities begin to
dissipate. Instead of both dying for the sake of their love, in Mama Day, only one in the couple
dies, leaving the other longing to die. At the end of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet has taken a strong
tranquilizer that makes it appear as though she is dead in order to be with her true love. Romeo,
thinking that she has actually died, takes a poison and dies. When Juliet awakens to see that
Romeo has poisoned himself, she stabs herself to die with him. In Mama Day, George dies so
that Cocoa can live. Though Cocoa is living, she mentions that she has considered suicide
because living without George is too much to bear (302). Both of these situations portray the
selfless ways that humans show their love for one another. Each does not want to live without
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the other. The only reason Cocoa does not go through with her suicide is that Mama Day will
not allow it (302).
After Romeo and Juliet die next to one another, the Montagues and the Capulets decide to
settle their differences and erect two gold statues of their two children in their honor. There is a
settling of differences in Mama Day and the dueling islands as well. At the end of the novel,
Mama Day goes to New York to help Cocoa pack up the apartment that she once shared with,
the now deceased, George. During this remorseful time, Mama Day has a great time touring the
city and picking up trinkets and souvenirs for the people of Willow Springs. Up until this point,
Mama Day had been receiving all of her misinformation about large cities from the Phil
Donahue Show. Being among the people of New York made Mama Day realize that “New York
was full of right nice folks” (305). This bringing of mementos back from New York for the
natives of Willow Springs shows the intermingling and new connection that these islands hold,
much like the new relationship that the Montagues and the Capulets have established.
The story of Romeo and Juliet is not the only Shakespearean infusion to the novel Mama
Day. Gloria Naylor has alluded to many other Shakespearean works to tell the story of Mama
Day, Cocoa, and George. One could call Cocoa shrewd and could claim that George came into
her life to take her down a couple of notches. This idea comes from as George says, “…had to
be Shakespeare’s most sexist treatment of women,” The Taming of the Shrew (106). The
tumultuous relationship of Katherine, the shrew, and Petruccio, the tamer, mirrors the
relationship of George and Cocoa. Cocoa is a wild child through the majority of the novel, and
George was the only one patient enough to put up with her. By the end of the novel, George has
“tamed” Cocoa and made her more reserved.
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The play, The Taming of the Shrew, not only reflects similarities to the lives of the
characters of Mama Day, but so does Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In Hamlet, the character of Ophelia
goes insane after the death of her beloved father and ends up committing suicide by jumping into
water and drowning. In Mama Day, the first Ophelia, Mama Day’s mother, goes insane after the
death of her beloved child Peace, and also drowns. The use of the name Ophelia and the method
of death by water are eerily similar to Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
The usage of identical names and similar plots of Shakespearean plays does not end with
Ophelia from Hamlet. Mama Day’s given name is Miranda, which is also the main character of
William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which shares a remarkably similar plot with Gloria
Naylor’s Mama Day. On page 64 of Mama Day, Cocoa interestingly claims that “Shakespeare
didn’t have a bit of soul” and that he wrote about “some slave on a Caribbean island” (64).
Shakespeare woven throughout this story about African-Americans, which shows some sort of
“soul,” makes these claims interesting. The slave on a Caribbean island that she is speaking of is
Caliban of The Tempest.
The Tempest is a story of the protagonist Prospero, who has the ability to create magic
through one of his slaves, Ariel, along with his own abilities. He causes a great tempest that
maroons a few of his enemies on an island that he has inhabited with his naïve daughter Miranda.
Prospero asks Ariel to create a situation where one of the people marooned on the island named
Ferdinand, will fall in love with his daughter at first sight. Prospero not only has one slave, he
has two. The other slave is named Caliban, who is the belligerent and violent son of a dead
witch named Sycorax.
When applying the story of The Tempest to Mama Day, the similarities are striking.
First, Mama Day had her hand in the creation of the relationship between Cocoa and George.
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She put some sort of special powder on the letter that Cocoa sent to George to get the job that she
needed. Not only did she get a job, she got a boyfriend and eventually a husband. Other plot
similarities are the smitten feelings that Cocoa and George felt with each other at first sight, just
like Miranda and Ferdinand. Of course, the main plot similarity is that there was a large storm
that changed the lives of all these people. If it were not for the storm in The Tempest, Ferdinand
would have never met Miranda. If the tempest did not occur in Mama Day, George might have
actually taken Cocoa off the island before he died for her to live, thus causing her to in fact die.
Many of the main characters of The Tempest have some sort of represented main
character in Mama Day. Though Miranda and Mama Day have the same name, Mama Day takes
the place of Prospero and Cocoa takes the place of Miranda in their respective stories. The
difference between Prospero and Mama Day is that Prospero abuses his magical talents, where
Mama Day only uses hers for important reasons. The character of Ferdinand appears to be
played by George especially when he has no problem working hard for the Day sisters, just as
Ferdinand did not complain when Prospero puts him to work, because it was all for the good of
the families of the women that each man loves. The dead witch Sycorax takes the role of
Sapphira Wade because of her mysterious origins and rumors of her magical presence. The
devilish character of Caliban is most associated with Ruby. In The Tempest, Caliban has
attempted to rape Miranda, which violated Miranda’s body and messed with Prospero’s mind. In
Mama Day, Ruby put poison on Cocoa, which interfered with her body, which in turn interfered
with Mama Day’s life. In both stories, these evil minds got what was due to them.
In an interview, when asked if the similarities between Mama Day and The Tempest was
intentional, Gloria Naylor said, “Sure wasn’t…I’d love to take credit for it because I read a really
great analysis on Mama Day and The Tempest...In Mama Day, where I consciously put
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Shakespeare was, of course, with King Lear and Romeo and Juliet…Even though I have read
The Tempest a couple of times, I did not consciously use it in my work.” (Bonetti, 57). Though
that is hard to believe, it makes it more incredible that the only allusion to Romeo and Juliet that
she meant was the seduction scene of Cocoa and George to correlate with the seduction scene of
Romeo and Juliet. It takes pure literary brilliance to channel one of the best and most revered
playwrights inadvertently and to have so many unconscious allusions to their works in ones own
work. Gloria Naylor channels William Shakespeare and re-imagines his work in a way that can
reach an audience more accessibly. The story of two distinct islands and the love that it brings is
one that only Shakespeare and Gloria Naylor could bring to the masses.
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Works Cited
Bonetti, Kay. "An Interview with Gloria Naylor." Conversations with Gloria Naylor. Ed.
Maxine Lavon Montgomery. Mississippi: UP of Mississippi, 1988. 39-64. Print.
Naylor, Gloria. Mama Day. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1988. Print.
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